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When writing near future science fiction, what are some techniques that can be used to avoid sounding like an idiot?
What I'm talking about is either one of two things:
1. When writers invent things that don't exist yet or try to explain how they work, and are either proven wrong in a matter of years or laughed at because such technology can never exist or won't for a very long time (overshooting)
>flying cars by 2015, supercomputers who gain sentience and create giant bird monsters that cause hurricanes sometime around the cold war, etc.
2. Completely omitting something that everyone should see coming (undershooting)
>pic related
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>>9918566
Don't include anything that is not necessary for your story just to show off.
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>>9918566
Who cares if you're proven wrong 20 years after the fact? That's not really the point of scifi. Just make it self-consistent and interesting.
Also change society itself, don't just add some fancy gadgets.
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>>9918566
Depends who is your audience. If it's the general population, don't bother gathering too much info, the idea is already floating in the zeitgest (ex: rogues IA, cyberpunk AKA the end of the state etc.). If you're writing for specialists (hard sci-fi, Ted Chiang, Liu Cixin), do some research and ask some experts.
I find it easier to browse specialists forums. Then again, the I can take some liberties with what I gather over there.
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>>9918566
Keep the year ambiguous. When is Infinite Jest set? When is A Clockwork Orange set? I don't know, but the writer clearly had a near-future time period in mind, and the predictions of those books didn't come true
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>>9918754
>Keep the year ambiguous
yeah I like that idea a lot
>>9918646
>>9918715
Definitely aiming for scientific accuracy. Want it to be an "it could happen" story.
Yes it will be fiction in that I'm making up the characters and setting but I would like to keep it as realistic as possible, based on at least like 80-90% science fact, and I'm doing the research already.
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>>9918566
The best technique is to actually be technologically literate and have deep knowledge of natural sciences and computers.
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>>9919376
Then I can only recommend hanging out with people in the field. If you develop the right sense for tendance/zeitgeist (whatever you call it), you can create ideas that stimulate these people's imagination (and you can test their accuracy just by talking with them).
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>>9918566
>When writing near future science fiction, what are some techniques that can be used to avoid sounding like an idiot?
Don't be an idiot. Not even memeing, that's the only viable path.
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>>9919399
I get a tons of idea in the hacker news comment sections.
Also, do not forget to let your imagination loose. At some point, just reading the title of an article gives me an idea I can use. I write it down and then I go and read the content.
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Make the technology smaller and faster
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Please for the love of god don't skimp out on political realism
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